Album Review: Scorn (Primitive Man)

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Today I’m reviewing the debut album of Primitive Man, entitled Scorn (Relapse Records).  This album is definitely not your stereotypical metal affair with blistering speed, dynamic riff sequences, and tasty touches of melody and harmony.  This album is just raw, unadulterated grimness.  I’ve heard their sound termed ‘blackened doom;’ their Facebook page declares their genre ‘Death Sludge Doom Gaze.’  But really, their style rises above (or perhaps sinks below) any neat verbal packaging.  Scorn vaguely reminds me of the self-titled death/doom debut of the brief-lived group Serpentine Path, which came out back in September 2012, but that doesn’t quite give you the whole picture.  At certain moments, like on “Stretched Thin,” Primitive Man seems to combine the experimental sludge/doom of the Japanese group Boris with a black metal mentality, but I think that description will lead you astray as well.  The album contains some ominously ambient tracks that bear similarity to work done by Electric Wizard, but with a, dare I say, darker tone.  But otherwise, their doom is quite different than that of the Wizard.  Perhaps it's a sound that you just need to check out for yourself, but, as a word of warning, don’t give it a listen on a nice, sunny day, for once you press play, bleak, menacing thunderheads will manifest from nothing and negate all light.

            I must emphasize that this album is SLOW and HEAVY.  Those two words are probably the best starting place in an assessment of this release.  Scorn is doom to the core.  This isn’t the groovy doom of bands like Sleep and Sabbath; this music really constructs an aura of doom that is imminent and threatening.  Sure, all doom does this to some extent, but on this album, Primitive Man grabs you by the scalp and slowly hoists you over an unfathomable cliff.  As you look down, a fiery behemoth opens its putrid maw to catch your fall.  Together, guitar and bass resound with a humming, fuzzed-out dissonance.  Expansive chords and notes blossom from the speakers, only to linger and wither into oblivion.  For the most part, the songs move at a languorous crawl.  The drums don’t push the music along; they sound as if they are being dragged by a morbid sense of inevitability.  Leaking from dirty, decaying amplifiers, the guitars knell a darkly stagnant tone that will pull you down to festering depths of subterranean horror.  This is certainly not cruising music or music to get you stoked up.  However, there are plenty of passages that pick the tempo up, slipping in and out of the recording in order to make things interesting.  If anything, these faster sequences emphasize the general torpidity of the release, waking you from your trance and reminding you how slow the music has been going. 

            The vocals are gravelly and abrasive, ranging from a throaty shriek to more of a death metal growl.  The overall quality of the music is hypnotic.  Corpulent, repetitive riffs cause the listener to lose a sense of self.  This music applies a steady force capable of eroding concrete to dust.  This album might be the sonic equivalent of what it feels like to be pressed with stones or sink slowly into hot tar.  Sounds fun, right?  All kidding aside, though, it is a very solid album that nevertheless carries a few weaknesses.  Though hypnotic and repetitive is the goal here, the album can waver from trance inducing to simply dull.  There are times when the ear just yearns for more, if only to emphasize the grinding doom aspect by contrast.  In addition, there isn’t a lot of material, as the album clocks in at just under 40 minutes.  With a release like this, which should include long, monolithic tracks, I think a longer album is expected (though the deluxe release does provide three bonus tracks).  Finally, the album is a little narrow in scope.  Due to the abysmal nature of the sound, a certain mood is required to fully enjoy it.  However, as far as bleak, crushing music goes, Scorn is a superb rendition that truly creates its own atmosphere.

Score: 7/10